Car-builders were set to work repairing the locomotives and cars.

Thus every branch of railroad building, making tools to work with, and supplying the workmen with food, was all going on at once, and without the aid of a mechanic or laborer except what the command itself furnished.

But rails and cars the men could not make without material, and there was not enough rolling stock to keep the road we already had worked to its full capacity.

There were no rails except those in use.

To supply these deficiencies I ordered eight of the ten engines General McPherson had at Vicksburg to be sent to Nashville, and all the cars he had except ten.
I also ordered the troops in West Tennessee to points on the river and on the Memphis and Charleston road, and ordered the cars, locomotives and rails from all the railroads except the Memphis and Charleston to Nashville.